Uluwatu with friends

Let us introduce you to Fais, our dear friend. We met Fais many months ago on the beach while he was selling ice cream, he walks along “our” beach selling ice out of a cool box he carries around. There are many guys like him selling ice, but soon we made friends with Fais and he always stop for a talk and a break if we are on the beach. He is from Java, working in Bali because here there are more jobs then in Java. Oby, Fais’ girlfriend was also coming over to Bali some weeks ago, she had just finished high school and also wants a job here on Bali. At the moment she doesn’t have a job yet. Fais told us that she wants to see more of Bali, so we suggested going together to Uluwatu temple in the south. We still had to go there ourselves and would like to show them some of Bali. This was of course our treat and we enjoyed doing something nice for and together with Fais and Oby. After some convincing he accepted the invitation and we had a fabulous afternoon and evening!

After Rino finished work we met Fais and Oby on the scooter and made the one-hour drive to Uluwatu. Arriving at the temple area it was like all tourists suddenly came out of the ground, it was so crowded. Uluwatu is also famous for its monkeys, just like in Monkeyforest in Ubud. The difference was that they steal and pick more from people, so be careful with anything in your pocket or anywhere. We saw monkeys grab several pars of glasses from people and happily chewing them to pieces. Uluwatu temple is laying on the very tip of the big cliff that goes out in the sea and is not open for the visitors. But there are some amazing viewpoints where you can look down in the sea and out over the ocean south of Bali, and of course you can watch the huge cliff and the temple from a distance. The perfect view is with the sunset. It sadly was cloudy this afternoon, so the sunset wasn’t very clear, but it was still beautiful and the view is still breath taking.

Every evening at 6 they show the Kecak dance at Uluwatu, this is a very special Balinese dance, performed by only men. Instead of the usual gamelan orchestra, the voices of the men are the music accompanying this performance. In Bali there are not many places the kecak dance is shown commercially for tourists, but Uluwatu shows it every day. We didn’t see it yet, so this was a great opportunity. Fais also had heard about it and was so happy to be able to experience this show. The sunset was also still beautiful when the show started, couldn’t be better!

The show was impressive, the choir of the men’s voices is incredible to listen too and the dance performance and story that is told by the dancers makes it even more beautiful. It is a story about Rama & Sita, a Hindu love story between a King and his princess. To get a slight impression of the sounds here is a video we took:



After the show it was dark and we took the scooters to go home. On the way we stopped at our favourite Vietnamese small restaurant to eat. Oby and Fais had never had Vietnamese food so it was nice to try something new. The whole evening was so much fun for all of us! Fais told us that for him the show was like in his dreams or on TV and he enjoyed everything a lot together with Oby. Then we realize that we do this things every weekend, sometimes every day. We see the world, we eat food from all corners of the world, we do what we want when we want. We enjoy and we are impressed but at the same time we are used to do all this... When you enjoy and experience through the eyes of Fais and Oby one afternoon in Bali....then you realize how magical and beautiful all this is, to be able to do all this all the time for 10 months! Thank you Fais and Oby to let us be your friends and see the world the way you see it sometimes! :-)